The sociology of lifestyle governance: A research field 60 THE SOCIOLOGY OF LIFESTYLE GOVERNANCE: A RESEARCH FIELD Matilda Hellman We eat, drink and game for a number of reasons: in order to fill up time, to manage stress, to dampen emotions, to punish ourselves – or just to create space for fun activities in our lives. This is our prerogative as prosperous people in consumer society. Our behaviour is supported by commercial promises, by a seemingly endless availability of products and consumption opportunities, by the attractions of defining and understanding ourselves through acts of consumption. At the same time, these very same societies are involved in a process of negotiating the limits for what are defined as excessive and problematic variants of these behaviours. The core of Pekka’s work is situated in the intersection of these circumstances. This is also the research focus of the University of Helsinki Centre for Research on Addiction, Control and Governance (CEACG) – a research group that Pekka planned for a long time, but would finally come to found in the year 2011. Figure 1. below is a simplified illustration the CEACG-research in four overlapping dimensions. These dimensions are basic building blocks for understanding governance of people and behaviour distinguished as matters to be transformed, normalized or prevented by (collective) interventions of some sort. Dimension A. concerns behaviours and people viewed as ‘the governed’; B. concerns system structures and institutions in which we operate when we address these matters; C. concerns the modes and formats of control and governance aimed to prevent or change behaviour; and, D. concerns the symbolic articulation of what the problems are all about and how they should be dealt with. In the CEACG-research, all dimensions of Figure 1. are seen as connected, even if research tasks have typically come to emphasize the different dimensions to different degrees. Comparisons between countries and systems have been of special importance as these offer explanations to different types of setups and relations. Many times, the cross-country comparisons have been decisive for drawing conclusions regarding what the different policy and